Hey guys, so while looking for a way to get my page higher up on the google search page I ran across this tool.

I didn't actually design the website, I'm just trying to maintain it and I don't really know what I'm doing yet...I was able to fix about 10 of the errors but the rest have me a little stumped (and that's just on the home page). Was wondering if anyone would like to give any pointers..or maybe just tell me that I shouldn't even worry about it.

Thanks for any help/advice, it is very appreciated!

We would do it step by step:-
On the W3C markup validator, while validating the website, go to More Options => show Source and Show Outline, and validate the markup.
You now can scroll down and see Validation Output: 46 Errors
1. Give alt attribute to all the <img> tags
For example, <img src="images/testimage" alt="put image alternative text here" />
alt is the alternative text for the images, so that search engines could know what the image is for
2. Write the br tag as <br />, dont forget the slash
3. Maximum errors are for <embed> tag, I would explain it to you in next reply, once you fix the above small errors
This is because the markup errors propagate... so let us see how many are reduced once you fix these

Thanks for the replies you two!

tejaswini
I wanted to ask, before I started repairing the site, do you think I should? Will it make any perceivable difference? What is your opinion? I'm brand new to this so I'm not sure what the norm is and if this sort of thing is common.

tejaswini
Thanks for the info on the google rankings, but I don't actually have a blog..and this thread isn't really focused on that topic, but I will look into the blog idea if people think it's a valuable tool for increasing a site's SEO (if that's the correct terminology). Thanks again for all your help!

do you think I should?

You really should validate your pages, it can catch errors that can screw up your site. Get in the habit. If you're going to use an XHTML doctype, then you have to follow it's rules if you want it to validate.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

You really should validate your pages, it can catch errors that can screw up your site. Get in the habit. If you're going to use an XHTML doctype, then you have to follow it's rules if you want it to validate.

That looks like a "yes, you should repair the errors."

I will start working on it soon then, thanks for the insight.